Love-Lock
Love-Lock was a pilot created by Elliot Strange in 1995 for HBO. Characters from the pilot would later make prominent appearances in The Halloween Kids (TV series). Summary The pilot centers on the Lovingtons, a Mid-Atlantic family of five who go about their lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It stars Martha, a cynical yet eccentric woman who contends with her apathetic husband Harold, her daughter Christine who tends to serve as her conscious and her malevolent son Kenny. Martha is routinely antagonized by her eldest son Larry, a preachy boy who clashes heavily with his polar opposite mother for the sake of self-validation, though he's often outdone by his own hubris. Martha finds reprieve from her paint-by-numbers life through hanging with her equally bitter and cynical friends Andy, Chris, Mike, Hen and Majel, all of which who're also in bad marriages. Martha gets by through mild masochism, and typically comes out on top. Plot Martha bemoans over having to wake up early due to Harold having an early job; she is unable to return to sleep after getting woken up. Harold curtly tells her to move on as he's the family's lone source of income after Martha quit her job and leaves. Not in the mood to make herself breakfast, Martha preps some cereal, finishing off a box that was meant for her kids. Her children are more preoccupied with getting to school, so she is able to hide what she has done. After getting her kids to school, Martha finds herself with nothing to do. Out of desperation she goes to contact her estranged son Larry. Larry claims to be in a relationship with a man, but Martha has no qualms with it. After more failed attempts at offending her, Larry kicks her out. Having wasted enough time, Martha heads to the bar and meets her friends Andy, Mike, Chris, Hen and Majel. They discuss the failings of their marriages, but Martha turns it toward her wanting to get a new job. She hears from a bar patron that a family is looking for a sitter, and Martha decides to take that job, feeling that it'd give her more personal freedom. Martha returns home and scolds Harold for being on the couch, though he defends himself by claiming he did everything Martha wanted him to do beforehand, even buying a new TV. He questions where the kids are as Martha was supposed to take them home and she quickly leaves, having forgot about them. Rectifying this, she goes to work and is shocked to find it involves rehabilitating the parents of a spoiled child. Martha starts with the child, Deeandra, who's in the midst of a temper tantrum. Martha sharply tells her to stop but she refuses, not even explaining what her issue is. She claims the only solution would be an expensive trip to the movies, but Martha refuses to enable the child, instead confining her to her room after she makes fun of her. The parents reprimand her and claim that they merely want her to work out her frustrations. Martha claims that they need to be firm with their daughter, otherwise she could use the tantrums to her advantage, but this falls on deaf ears. At dinner, Deeandra offends Martha and throws her dinner to the floor. Martha responds by snatching her dessert and throwing her in her room. The parents prepare to kick her out after what happened. Desperate to rehabilitate them, Martha begins spanking the father and the mother, doing the same to Deeandra and washing her mouth out with soap after hurling profanities. The parents concede and Martha puts them in touch with a family counselor, collecting her pay after reporting to her hirer. Martha returns home and Harold reveals that he got access to security cameras in the house, and that the only reason she got the money was because the hirer was ignorant over what went down. Both open up over their issues, primarily with Harold eying an attractive neighbor and Martha's attitude. They agree to stay faithful on a one-on-one basis. Before Martha could explain her day, she finds her son Kenny pulling a prank on the neighbor and sees a news report where Larry is holding his lover hostage. Having got ahead of her enemies, Martha claims she had a good day.